Recovering
by Jennifer Lee
Summary: Set mostly in 2032. What happens when Lucas' little sister finds out her brother's alive..and now she's the older sibling? My first fic 'round here. Thanks for reading.
1. Default Chapter Title

Disclaimer: The seaQuest concept and characters aboard the seaQuest are not mine; they are owned by Amblin Television, etc. I am making no money off this story; I'm writing purely for enjoyment. Randy Holt/Miranda Wolenczak and Nana Holt are my own creation. Lyrics are from "Touch of Grey" by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter, owned by Ice Nine Publishing. Used here without permission, but with the utmost respect.

****

July 2017, Buffalo, New York

The girl stood in what, until this morning, had been her bedroom. She sighed, sounding much older than a girl who was not quite ten. The last of her bags had been taken downstairs, joining the others already waiting by the door for Nana Holt. The girl wondered if she would like living with Nana. She thought she might; the summers she'd spent with Nana in Florida were always peaceful. No one called her stupid there, and no one rubbed her face in her big brother's genius IQ. Nana's house always smelled like fresh flowers, and there was always music playing. Nana let her draw pictures and write stories, and didn't make her try to learn calculus. Yes, she would probably like living with Nana.

Not that she had much of a choice. Mom and Dad didn't have time for her- that had become obvious when her IQ scores had come back a couple years ago. Above Average. Not Genius. Above Average. That was when interest in the daughter had waned. For the next two years she had lived like a ghost in this house. With her brother off at college, no one asked her about school, wanted to know what she liked, what she wanted to do. It had almost been a relief to everyone when the girl's grandmother had offered to let the girl live with her. Now her bedroom was empty: packed away for the trip to Florida. The girl knew that Mom already had plans to turn her room into a study. An hour after she left, it would be as if the Wolenczaks had never had a daughter.

She heard her brother's voice at the top of the stairs. "Hey, Randy! You still up here?" A moment later, the boy's head poked around the corner, beside where the girl stood in the doorway. "Randy, Mom says you should come downstairs. Nana's on her way over from the hotel."

The girl wrinkled up her nose in annoyance. "I'm so sick of telling you, Lucas. 'Randy' is a BOY'S name. I'm a GIRL." But she couldn't be mad at him, really. She liked having him home from school, because then there was someone to talk to. And besides, now she was the one leaving home; of all the times he had teased her with his nickname for her, this would probably be the last.

The older boy caught a little of her mood, and he tried to smile reassuringly. "Okay, Mira-a-a-nda," he replied, drawing out her name in emphasis. He then looked around her bedroom, pushing his blond hair out of his eyes absently with one hand. "Wow," was all he said. She knew he was struck by the bareness too. Then he shook his head and started digging in the pocket of his jeans. "Listen, I have something for you."

The thought of a present pricked through the cloud of sadness. "Really? What is it?"

From his pocket, the boy produced a small grey box. He looked a little uncomfortable, as if he wasn't used to giving gifts. "Here," he said unceremoniously, pushing the present in her direction. "It's a birthday present."

The girl looked at him suspiciously. "It's not my birthday. That's in September." For a genius, sometimes he could be really dumb.

The boy shrugged. "Yeah, but I'll be in school then. And you'll be in Florida." He waved impatiently. "Just open it, willya?" As she started to do so, he hovered over her nervously. "Nana helped me pick it out yesterday. She said you might like it."

Inside the box was a locket. Smooth, not engraved, made of silver and in the shape of a heart. It was such an un-Lucas-like gift that she knew that Nana had more than "helped" choose it. But that didn't matter. Gifts from Lucas were rare, and that in itself made the necklace special.

"Oh, Lucas," the girl breathed. "It's so pretty. Thank you!"

"You like it?" The boy's face lit up at her smile. Then he remembered something. "And look, it opens up here, see?" He reached for the pendant, not taking it out of her hands, but pressing the catch on the side that opened it. Inside, there were two small photographs- the girl on the left, and the boy on the right.

"See?" The boy continued. "It's us. You and me." He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was uncharacteristically thick with emotion. "It's so you won't forget about me in Florida." He paused again. Such sentiments were rare for him, and it took time for him to form the words. "I mean, I won't get to see you much. I want you to know, though, y'know, that you'll always have me. I'll always be your big brother."

Now, for the first time today, the girl could feel the tears start. Clutching the necklace in one hand, she reached for the boy's arm with the other. "But you'll come to Nana's, right? You'll come and see me?"

The boy nodded, speaking with the bravado of a typical fifteen-year old. "This is my last year at Stanford. I'll be a college graduate soon, I can do anything I want." He drew his sister close. The boy had never been one for hugs, but this was a special occasion. She felt him kiss the top of her head. "I'll be there, Randy. Don't worry."

In that embrace, saying goodbye to her brother, Miranda Wolenczak didn't bother to argue against the nickname she hated.

****

September 2032, New Cape Quest, Florida

"Listen, I've got something for you." The boy started digging in the pocket of his jeans.

"Really? What is it?" While the girl reached eagerly for the present, she was also very aware that this was a dream. She was ten years old, saying goodbye to her brother. She was also twenty-five, opening the box that held the locket she'd been wearing for fifteen years.

"Oh, Lucas. It's so pretty. Thank you!" They also weren't in her old bedroom in their parents' house in Buffalo. They were in the entry bay of a submarine. The boy was suddenly a little taller, his hair shorter. And the jeans he'd been wearing had become a UEO uniform. _Uniform? When did he enlist? He shouldn't be wearing a uniform._ She looked at the locket, open to the pictures of a brother and sister, and she felt the tears start. _Not again…_

"I'll always be your big brother." His voice was harder to hear. She looked up in dismay. He was gone. She was now on the shore, watching the sub vanish beneath the surface of the water. She started to cry now in earnest. "Lucas, no! Don't go! You can't go! You won't come back!"

"Don't forget me…" his voice whispered across the current. "…always be your big brother…"

The girl screamed her grief to the waves, clutching the locket so hard it started to cut her palm…

…and she jerked awake, disoriented. For a long moment she was too weak with grief to do anything but blink at the ceiling. The she turned her head to look at the clock. Five minutes to seven. Ten minutes before the alarm; dammit, she hated when she did that. She sat up and turned it off, since she was awake anyway. She ran a hand across her face and realized it was wet with tears. She shuddered a little as the dream came back to her, full-force. Her right hand was still clenched shut. She opened it: empty. She felt around her neck, and was reassured by the long silver chain; its familiar weight told her the locket was where it always was. She brought it up and clicked it open. As she did so, she mused over her dream, a little calmer now. She hadn't had it in quite some time, what had triggered it? She closed the locket without really looking at the pictures inside. Not that she really needed to - every line and detail had been memorized long ago.

She sat in bed another minute or two, hugging a pillow to her chest. Out of bed and out in the world, no one anymore knew her name was Miranda Wolenczak. No one knew she'd lost a brother on the _seaQuest_. So it was here, in bed, early in the morning and late at night, that she allowed herself to think of Lucas. He should be turning 30 this year, but instead he was gone. Thanks to their loving parents and the damned UEO.

The UEO, she realized in the shower a few minutes later. That was where the dream had come from. Work had been nuts lately. With deadline approaching, home had just been a place to sleep, shower, change clothes, and drink coffee. She hadn't bothered to play back her vid messages for a couple of days. Last night, she'd gotten home relatively early and played back the accumulated messages. Among them was one from some muckety-muck in the UEO, which she took grim pleasure in deleting without even playing back. She wasn't a fool. She knew what year it was; the s_eaQuest_ had disappeared ten years ago. Well, they could get another grieving family member to star in their retrospective. God knew that Mom and Dad loved playing the grief-stricken parents of the boy genius whenever anyone turned a camera their way. Let them do it; she wasn't interested.

She sighed as she sipped on her second cup of coffee. The UEO message, combined with her dream, had put her in a lousy mood. Bad vibes, as Nana would say. She smiled, thinking of the grandmother who had raised her. Nana was a big believer in what she called "vibes." And you couldn't start the day with bad vibes- nothing would go right if you did. Music was always what Nana depended on to regulate her mood. Crossing to the stereo, she flipped through the vast collection of audio discs that her grandmother had left behind. There was one particular song that Nana had always played when things looked low. The song was from the 1980s- so old it was actually on a compact disc. She slipped it into the adapter on the stereo, smiling as the familiar guitar melody started and that soothing, weathered voice began to sing.

Must be getting early

Clocks are running late

Paint-by-number morning sky

Looks so phony…

Nana had talked of this song being almost an anthem for her in her younger days- a song that meant perseverance and hope. She herself thought the words were rather nonsensical at times, but not as much as some of Nana's other favorites. Whatever it meant, this song scored very high on Nana's good vibe meter.

She hummed along as she put on her shoes, and sang along quietly to Nana's favorite verse.

The shoe is on the hand it fits

There's really nothing much to it

Whistle through your teeth and spit

Cause it's all right.

Oh well a touch of grey

Kind of suits you anyway.

That was all I had to say 

It's all right.

I will get by / I will get by

I will get by / I will survive

We will get by / We will get by

We will get by / We will survive

She smiled again as these last lines faded out, turning the disc player off as she did so. Nana had talked once about the singer of this song. She'd told how he was in a coma for a long time, and wasn't supposed to recover. But he did recover, and on the next tour, this song seemed to symbolize his recovery and survival. This had been a good song to choose this morning; she'd been through a lot herself these past few years, and she'd survived. 

And she would continue to do so. The demons were laid to rest for another day, with the help of some of Nana's beloved Grateful Dead. And now, she had a deadline to meet, and a magazine to publish.

Randy Holt picked up her satchel and headed to work.

Chapter Two

"Another deadline down!" Carson raised his beer mug in a toast, and the other four people around the table raised theirs in response. Deadline week was crazy; lots of late nights followed by early mornings. At the end of that week, the editorial staff of the _New Cape Quest Monthly_ treated themselves to a night out. Detox, Carson called it. When Randy started attending these dinners a couple years ago and saw how much alcohol was consumed, she'd commented that it was more like "intox." All in all, it was a good evening. This month's issue, both the electronic and paper versions, had been pretty smooth, so there was a lot of back-patting that night.

Except for that damned Frazier interview. "You know, that vid footage never turned up," Randy complained. "I tore my desk apart looking for it too."

Kay raised an eyebrow. "Well, you know. Wait ten years. Maybe it'll turn up in a cornfield." Everyone laughed, Doug adding "In Iowa!" Everyone except Randy, who looked blankly around the table.

"Cornfield? Iowa? What am I missing here?"

Carson looked at her like she had grown a third eye. " Don't you work for a news magazine? Where have you been?"

"Trying to get a straight answer about Governor Frazier's re-election campaign spending. Where have you been?" She shot back.

Doug laughed again. "Leave her alone, Car. You know how Randy gets on deadline." He turned to Randy, mock-accusingly. "You haven't seen a news report all week, have you?"

Randy shook her head as she took another sip of beer. "I figure if we're under attack, someone would let me know. Why? What happened in Iowa that I missed?"

Carson put down his mug and leaned forward a bit. "Well, you remember when that big sub disappeared? The _seaQuest_? It was about ten years ago now."

Randy nodded carefully, the hair on the back of her neck standing up. _Mom and Dad didn't even call to tell us. We didn't find out till three weeks later, when Nana called Mom on her birthday. "By the way, have you heard from Lucas? We haven't talked to him in a couple of months now." "Oh, I guess you haven't heard…" Guess not, Mom._ She nodded again, fighting to keep her actions and her voice neutral. "Yes, I remember." She took a long pull off her beer; she had a feeling she wasn't going to like the line of this discussion.

"Well, earlier this week they found it."

__

Concentrate, Randy. Swallow the beer. Don't spit it on your boss. "Really?" _Good. Neutral voice. But put the beer down, your hand's starting to shake._

Carson nodded. He was really enjoying the opportunity to tell the story all over again, to someone who hadn't heard it. "You will never guess where it turned up." He didn't give Randy a chance to guess. Not that she was going to; her head was spinning too fast for coherent thought. "It was in Iowa. In the middle of a cornfield."

Iowa. Cornfield. Randy tried really hard to get her mind around those two words, with little success. Both her hands were in her lap; they were shaking too much to hide. "The crew?" She swore inwardly when her voice betrayed her by breaking. She covered with a cough and tried again. "What about the crew?"

Carson grinned. Here's where it got good. "From what I heard, they're pretty much okay. But here's the weird part:" He leaned forward, as if he were about to share a great secret. "Someone told me that they've all got amnesia or something. They don't know where they've been for the past ten years. They didn't even know they were gone that long."

__

This has to be a dream. Maybe if I grab my locket and start screaming, I'll wake up. Or maybe I'll just lose my job and end up in intense psychotherapy. "So are they all being treated? Have they gone home to their families?" _Did Mom not call **again**?_

"Now's where we get into the classified stuff," her senior editor shrugged. "But I don't think so. From what my source told me, the _seaQuest_ went right back in the water. That skirmish over in Macronesia - oh, you probably missed hearing about that one too. Anyway, rumor has it the _seaQuest _was involved. Besides, I think if the crew had stayed behind, we'd be hearing a lot more about them. Hell, I would already have gotten at least three exclusive interviews by now."

The conversation was ended at that point with the arrival of their food. But by that time, the evening's objective had radically changed for Randy. Instead of relaxing, enjoying a nice dinner with her coworkers, and "detoxing" from a stressful week, she concentrated instead on acting normal for the next hour, so she could get the hell out of that restaurant as soon as possible without raising any eyebrows.

In her car on the way home, her brain tried desperately to sort out what she'd learned that evening. If she was right, Lucas was alive, had amnesia, and was back in the middle of the ocean fighting battles without even the opportunity to call home. She couldn't believe that. To think of Lucas, of all of the crew, gone for so long, long enough to be declared legally dead years ago. There was even a _memorial,_ for Chrissakes! And now they're alive, safe, and back on active duty without a word to their families. No letter, not even a message from the UEO…

__

...message from the UEO. Randy slammed her open palm on the steering wheel. There had been a message. She'd erased it. "Dammit!" she shouted out loud. She wondered if there was any way she could get a message back after it had been deleted. Randy was computer literate, but she was far from being a hacker. Lucas could probably do it, though. That thought produced a strange sound from her throat, somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

Maybe Mom had called. Randy really didn't think so, but she held onto that slim hope, dropping her keys twice before she got her front door open. Randy hadn't spoken to her mother since Nana's estate was settled, four years ago. Part of her couldn't imagine that Mom would call now. She hadn't called to tell them Lucas was gone, why would she call now when he was alive?

There was a vid message. Randy dropped her keys, her satchel, and her leftover container from the restaurant in her scramble to hit the playback button.

"Hi Randy!" A pretty redhead filled the screen, much to Randy's disappointment. "How have you been? I know you're busy, but call me, okay?" Any other day, she would have loved to hear from Laura. Since they had graduated from college, they weren't in touch nearly as often as either of them would like. Any other night, she would call her old roommate back immediately, and the two would spend the evening catching up.

Not tonight, though. She deleted Laura's message a little impatiently. For a very long moment, her fingers hovered over the controls to the videophone. Who should she call: the UEO or her parents? Neither one was a call she particularly wanted to make. Intellectually, she had no reason to hate the UEO. During those horrible months of searching for the _seaQuest,_ representatives from the UEO had answered any questions she or Nana had, and made every effort to keep them up to date. But she still couldn't help but blame them for Lucas' disappearance. After all, it was the UEO that had caved in to Dad's pressure, and allowed Lucas to be stuck on that boat in the first place.

She sighed. She'd still rather call the UEO than her parents. She keyed in the number she'd memorized long ago. It was a 24-hour information desk; only families of MIA military were given the number. Even though Lucas technically wasn't in the military, the UEO had given the number to Nana all those years ago.

The officer that answered looked tired. Glancing at the clock on the wall behind him, Randy saw that it was close to midnight. Oh, well. No way was this waiting till morning. She pasted a bright, yet earnest, expression on her face. "Hi. I wanted to find out how to contact my brother. He's on the _seaQuest_, and I just learned they've been recovered."

"Name?" When he spoke, Randy realized he wasn't tired. Just bored.

"Lucas Wolenczak." She smiled as she said his name. It was all finally starting to seem real to her. Lucas. Her big brother. Alive. He was okay.

The officer hit a few strokes on his computer. "Your name?"

Randy took a deep breath. She hadn't spoken her real name to anyone in over three years. "Miranda Wolenczak." That felt good.

The officer frowned briefly at his computer screen. He turned back to Randy, a little perplexed. "And you say you're his sister?" The emphasis he put on that last word told Randy that he didn't believe her. She nodded. Before she could say anything else, the officer held up his hand to stop her. "I'm afraid that's not possible. According to our records, Lucas Wolenczak has no siblings."

"_What?_" For the second time that night, Randy's head spun with unexpected news. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. She really didn't know what to say. "Since _when_?" she finally spluttered.

"All of the _seaQuest_ crew's personnel files were updated when families were contacted this week. Wait a minute--" The officer's eyes narrowed as he squinted at her image on her screen. "You do look familiar."

"I do?" Randy wasn't sure what he meant. _Nana always said I looked a lot like Lucas. Maybe it's the hair. Or is there a picture of me in Lucas' file? News reports, covering the memorial?_

The officer continued. "You're Randy Holt, aren't you? The reporter?"

__

Oh. That. She waved her hand in impatience. "Well, yes, I am. But my name's really Miranda Wolen--"

"How did you get this number?" The officer's manner was clipped now. Professional. "This number was not given out to the media. It's a private line.*"

"I know." Randy was starting to lose patience. "Look, I got this message the other night off the vidphone. Now, I've had access to this number for quite some--"

But the officer wasn't listening. He was consulting his screen again. "There was a call put in to a _Margaret _Holt that was not returned."

"She's dead," Randy spat back. "That's why she didn't call you back."

The officer sighed, his face stony. Randy felt her heart sinking almost as fast as her hopes. "Miss Holt," he started again, speaking in slow, measured tones. "I don't know how you were able to retrieve Mrs. Holt's message, however-"

"Because she's my grand-"

"However," the officer repeated, as if she hadn't spoken at all. "Our records indicate that neither Randy Holt nor Miranda Wolenczak are related to Ensign Wolenczak."

"Ensign?" _When did he enlist,_ she thought wildly, getting a sense of déjà vu when she did so.

"Now, Miss Holt, I applaud your resourcefulness, but the media has already been briefed on the _seaQuest_ situation. Any other questions need to go through the proper channels. Good night." Before Randy could say anything else, he disconnected the call.

Flabbergasted, Randy watched the screen fade to black. "Lucas Wolenczak has no siblings"? How could that be? Her eyes narrowed. He'd said that the families had been contacted, and the crews' files updated. So not only had Mom and Dad **not** called again, but they'd cut her out of the equation entirely. Holding a grudge was one thing, but this was going too far. Her face grim, she punched in her parents' number.

For a few moments, she could do nothing but stare at the text flashing across the blue screen in front of her. "ERROR---INVALID CODE---PLEASE TRY AGAIN." They'd changed their number. She reached out and turned the machine off. She wasn't angry. She was too numb for anger, for any other emotion. For a moment, she pondered calling that UEO guy back. She pictured her side of the conversation: "Hi, officer, Miranda Wolenczak again. Yeah, I know I don't exist, but could you give me my mom and dad's number? They've changed it since the last time I spoke to them four years ago."

Frustrated, she paced the living room as she considered her options. But before she could consider her options, she had to actually come up with an option. And that seemed to be getting harder and harder to do. Almost unbidden, her feet carried her out her front door. Before she'd really thought about it, she was halfway to Memorial Park. A small voice in the back of her head told her that she shouldn't be out here alone; it wasn't safe. But after the night she'd had, her brain wasn't really taking in any new information. So she walked alone, a little after midnight, the half-mile to Memorial Park.

Ever since the park's dedication in 2029, Randy had found it to be a safe haven, a place to puzzle out her problems. Not a very large park, it existed solely to house the memorial to the_ seaQuest _and her crew. Once there, Randy stood and regarded the monument for a few seconds. A curved, obsidian-black wall bore the names of the crew. If Nana had lived to see it, Randy knew it would remind her of the Vietnam memorial in Washington, a monument they had traveled to see a number of times. On top of the wall, in the center of the curve, a marble dolphin danced in marble ocean waves.

It was now an obsolete memorial. Randy wondered if it would be torn down. She headed for her usual spot on the far right-hand side of the black wall. About halfway down the final panel of names was the one her eyes always picked out instantly:

LUCAS ROBERT WOLENCZAK

Her fingers traced over the carved letters as she sank to the ground in front of the monument.

"Oh, God, Lucas," she sighed. "What am I supposed to do?" Closing her eyes, she leaned her head against the cool slate, letting her mind drift backward in time. She thought about the day, four years ago or so, that the lawyers had settled Nana's estate. Lawrence and Cynthia Wolenczak stared coldly at their daughter. The lawyer had just announced that, saving a sizeable bequest to something called the Unbroken Chain Foundation, all of Margaret Holt's estate, including the vintage 1970's house in New Cape Quest, was left to her granddaughter, Miranda Holt Wolenczak.

"But I'm her daughter," Cynthia had argued. "I should get the house." It was obvious that she had really been looking forward to having a winter home in Florida. But her arguments were to no avail; the house had been left to Margaret's granddaughter. That day in the lawyer's office was the last day the Wolenczaks had spoken to Randy.

A year later, in May of 2029, the _seaQuest_ memorial, and the park that contained it, were dedicated, seven years to the day after its disappearance. At the dedication ceremony, Cynthia had walked right past Randy without a word, without even a glance. With Lucas gone, then Nana, and then her parents, Miranda Wolenczak was alone.

Randy opened her eyes, blinking up at the night sky. After graduating from college, it had just been easier to live as Randy Holt. The Wolenczak name had a lot of connotations associated with it- especially when one lived in New Cape Quest, where memories of the _seaQuest_ and her crew had grown practically to legend. Rather than share the memories and capitalize on her brother's name, she had found it easier, and perhaps less painful, to keep those memories to herself. Along with her real name.

But now Lucas had been found. Everything was going to change. She just had to find a way to get to him- a way that hadn't already been cut off by their parents.

Randy smiled. Of course. "Proper channels," wasn't that what the UEO officer had said? Suddenly, she knew exactly what she was going to do. Getting to her feet, she kissed her fingertips and pressed them to her brother's name, an old habit she didn't want to break yet. Not till she'd seen him again. Suddenly excited, she jogged most of the way home. She had things to do tonight, and she had the feeling she wouldn't be getting much sleep.

Chapter Three

Richard Carson had looked better. He'd felt better, too. But that usually involved consuming far less alcohol than he had the night before. He sipped from his self-filtering water bottle again and willed his headache to go away. Story conference this morning had been more painful than usual. Writers and editors brainstormed together in one small conference room, each one talking a little louder in an attempt to be heard over everyone else. It was always a loud, hectic, but generally exciting day as far as Carson was concerned. But today, with a beer-induced headache, he could only hope that he would make it through without losing consciousness.

He glanced over at his assistant, already typing busily on her laptop. He knew without even asking that somehow, in this din of clashing ideas, she was making sense of it all. And within the hour, she'd present him with an orderly list of topics likely to be covered in the next issue of _New Cape Quest Monthly_. He had no idea how Rosie did it, but he did know that he wasn't paying her nearly enough. 

His eyes, open as much as he could manage with the pounding that continued in his head, swept the room. The meeting was almost over, and the voices were winding down. Almost everyone had opened their laptops, starting to outline, or had flipped on their digital phones. And if he wasn't mistaken, everyone had had his or her say. His eyes stopped, resting on one of his writers. She wasn't powering up her laptop. He wasn't even sure if she _owned_ a laptop. She was the old-fashioned type, doing much of her writing with paper and ink pens. But he supposed that was to be expected from someone who was raised by her grandmother.

"Randy." She raised her head, her steel blue eyes meeting his calmly. She had spoken hardly a word through the whole meeting, which was very unlike her. He wondered why. Surely she wasn't suffering a similar hangover; he remembered her leaving the restaurant early last night, before the real drinking had begun. "What's going on there, Randy?" he asked. "Tell me what you've cooked up for yourself. Surely you're not ready for another round with Governor Frazier." There were a few scattered chuckles at this; Randy's loathing of all things political had really come to a head these past couple of weeks, as she had locked horns with not only the governor, but at times his entire PR staff as well.

Randy shook her head, acknowledging the joke with a small smile. But there was a look in her eyes that Carson had never seen before- a kind of peaceful serenity, but a peace that was tempered with steel. There was definitely something going on behind those eyes, and suddenly, Carson wasn't so sure that he wanted to know what that was.

"So come on, Randy," Doug called out from across the room, looking up from his laptop screen. "What have you got?" Doug Conover and Randy Holt had always been good "drinking buddies," regular members of what Carson called the Deadline Detox crew. But they also enjoyed a friendly rivalry, often peeking over each other's shoulders, and trying to top one another.

Randy's reply was quiet, but firm. In the conference room full of noisy reporters and editors, there was no mistaking what she said.

"The _seaQuest_."

A few chuckled greeted this. Carson shook his head.

"It'd be a real short article, kiddo. Everything we know's already been told, and everything we _don't _already know is classified."

Randy snorted at this last. "Since when has that stopped you? Admiral Klein's sudden early retirement last year? That was classified too. You know what strings to pull, you always have."

He had to admit that she had a point. But he also had to admit that she was buttering him up; she knew how proud he was of uncovering that story. But what the hell. Let her pitch it. No harm there, and maybe then she'd see how futile an idea it really was. Besides, maybe the entertainment would make his headache go away.

"So talk to me, Randy," he finally said, waving his staff quiet. "What's the story? It's gotta be something absolutely huge to get me to 'pull those strings.'"

"Isn't it obvious? There's a great story here that no one's tapped into yet. The human interest angle." For some reason, a trace of bitterness crept into her voice at this last, mingling very strangely with her more obvious excitement. Carson gestured a little impatiently for her to continue. "That crew-" Randy pointed as if the submarine was on the other side of the conference room door- "has been gone for ten years. Think about that. They were declared legally dead years ago. There's a monument to their memory."

Carson nodded curtly. "You're not telling me anything new yet." He could tell that Randy was warming up to her point. He just wished she'd do it a little more quickly, his headache wasn't getting any better.

Randy waved his comment aside as insignificant. "Don't we want to know what happened to these people? They're gone all that time, and then they're recovered. You said they have no memory of being gone, right?" Carson nodded again, opening his mouth. Before he could say anything, Randy plunged ahead. "But that can't be true. An epidemic of amnesia? I don't think so. There's a story there. Hell, there were something like two hundred people on that boat when it went missing. That's two hundred stories. And two hundred families. Like you said last night, they're all back on that boat, after whatever they've been through, without any time with their families. I can tell you this, Carson, every member of that crew has a family, has loved ones who want to know what's going on." Randy's voice, by this time, was almost a good octave higher than normal and her eyes were unusually bright. There was big emotion radiating from her, and that emotion knocked Carson back on his heels. Randy had always been a rock: professional, efficient, almost stoic. Now she seemed ready to burst into tears while pitching a story. What had happened to her?

"In my office." Carson cut her off before she could say any more. "We'll talk about this." Even though the pounding in his head begged for a dark room and a mild overdose of aspirin, he had the feeling there was something big here. Randy wasn't going to let this go. He didn't need to dismiss anyone else; they were already gathering their thing and heading back to their desks. Including Rosie, who was almost through compiling the minutes of the meeting. God bless Rosie.

Randy preceded Carson into his office, and he shut the door behind them. Neither of them said a word for a few moments. Carson sat down at his desk and looked at Randy. She'd regained her composure, but the flush in her cheeks remained. Now, close up, he could see that she looked tired, her eyes rimmed with red.

"Tell me what's going on," he said, fishing in his desk drawer for a bottle of aspirin.

Randy shrugged, her face impassive. But that steel was still in her eyes, and Carson wasn't fooled. "Nothing's 'going on.' I just think it would make a good story, that's all."

Carson shook his head. "I don't think so, kiddo. I've seen you pitch stories for three years, and I've never seen you this worked up. Not even last year, when you talked me into sending you to California to cover Bob Weir's funeral." Randy smiled a little at this last but said nothing. She just met his eyes calmly. Carson shook his head again. "I mean, come on, Randy. I was the one who told you about this last night, days after it was recovered. You're awfully worked up about something you've known about for, what, about twelve hours?"

Randy closed her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she shook her head. When she opened her eyes again, Carson was shocked to see the beginnings of tears. "No, Carson." Her voice was different now. Low. Calm. Quiet. "You're wrong. I've known about this for longer than twelve hours. A lot longer. Ten years, three months, and four days, if you want to be exact about it."

Carson stared at Randy for a long moment. He sighed, the long, hopeless sigh of someone who realized he didn't have nearly enough aspirin for this conversation. "What aren't you telling me?"

Randy studied her hands. "For the past few years now, I've been living and writing under the name Randy Holt. But that's not my real name." She glanced up at Carson and, seeing his raised eyebrow, continued. "My given name, my legal name, is Miranda Holt Wolenczak."

At first, Carson wondered why he was supposed to react. Journalists had pen names all the time, and Holt would certainly be catchier, not to mention easier to spell, than Wolen- _wait._ "_Wolenczak_? As in…"

Randy- _Miranda?_ - nodded. "Lucas Wolenczak is my older brother."

Carson was speechless, something that didn't happen very often. Randy apparently took this silence as disbelief, because she started rummaging in her omnipresent satchel, pulling out a folder, which she slid across the desk. Inside were various forms of proof of identity, which Randy narrated as he flipped through them.

"A copy of my Florida driver's license with my legal name. My birth certificate, naming my parents, Lawrence and Cynthia Wolenczak. A copy of Lucas' birth certificate, with the same parents. That's a family photograph taken in 2017, when I was nine, a couple of months before I moved down here to Florida to live with our grandmother. Oh, and this one…" She drew a smallish silver frame out of her bag, stroking the side of the frame for just a moment before handing it across the desk. In the frame was another photograph. Two blond teenagers, a young boy and a younger girl. The boy had one arm wrapped around the girl's shoulders, and both were laughing. "That was in 2020, the last time he came to visit Nana and me," Randy finished softly. Carson had seen enough file images of the Wolenczak kid to recognize him, and the girl in the photo…with that smile, and those steel-blue eyes, it could only be Randy.

He set the frame down on his desk, on top of the closed folder. He looked at his employee, who was eyeing him a little warily, fiddling with that locket she always wore around her neck. "Okay," he said. "I believe you." Her eyes closed for a moment, and watched a small smile of relief creep across her face. A couple of the tears that had been building escaped and slipped down her cheeks. "I believe you," he repeated. "But I don't understand. When did you change your name? And why?"

Randy laughed softly, flicking her tears away with the tips of her fingers. "Come on, Carson. You've worked in the media for a long time. You know it hasn't changed much. The human interest angle, like I said before? Every story's got one. Like that space shuttle, the one that exploded in the 1980's…"

"The _Challenger_?"

Randy nodded. "The _Challenger_. Seven people died on that space shuttle, but which one does everyone remember? The teacher, the civilian, the one that was different. Well, when the _seaQuest_ disappeared, the human interest angle was Lucas. The boy genius on board. There were lots of stories about him and his life 'tragically cut short.' He was everywhere I looked, it seemed like for a while. Television, magazines, newspapers. Then the reporters started showing up. Asking questions. It seemed like everyone wanted to talk to the heartbroken little sister." Randy studied her hands again, absently picking at a cuticle, her mind ten years in the past. "I couldn't go out to the movies with my friends. I couldn't even go to a damned football game, or a school dance. It felt like everywhere I went, someone wanted to talk to me, or take my picture. Or ask me asinine questions, like how was I dealing with my brother's death."

Carson was silent. Ten years ago, he'd been the new editor in chief for the _New Cape Quest Monthly_. He'd been very aware that he had to prove himself. An interview with that Wolenczak girl had seemed like a great way to do just that. He remembered yelling at his assistant (not Rosie, God knew he'd never get away with yelling at her), "She's a high school student! How hard can she be to find? Get me that interview!" He'd never gotten it. A few weeks after the _seaQuest_ disappeared, it was like the girl had vanished, too. If his head didn't hurt so bad, he'd laugh at the irony.

Randy didn't notice her boss' discomfort. "After the fifth or sixth time I came home from school in tears, my grandmother got sick of it. She pulled me out of school for a couple weeks, and enrolled me in a private school as Miranda Holt." She shrugged. "I guess it worked- no more stalkings. So I just stayed Miranda Holt. My grandmother was legally my guardian, and her last name was my middle name, so it was pretty easy to do."

"And 'Randy'? Where did that come from?"

She smiled a little, a smile that finally reached her eyes. "It's what Lucas used to call me when I was little. To tease me." She shook her head, momentarily lost in the memory. "Man, I used to really hate it. I'd tell him that was a boy's name, and you can't call a girl by a boy's name."

"So this isn't about a story at all," Carson finally said softly. Randy looked up at him sharply. "You don't want me to pull some UEO strings so you can write me some fantastic story. You just want me to get you on the _seaQuest_, don't you? You want your brother back."

Randy sighed heavily and leaned back in her chair. Carson studied her carefully. He'd said that last mostly to gauge her reaction; he didn't really believe it was true. Randy had worked for him for four years- five if you counted her college internship with the magazine. All that time she'd been a consummate professional. He couldn't imagine her throwing that hard-earned reputation away now, no matter how much she wanted to see Lucas. But then again, he'd never had a brother come back from the dead, so what the hell did he know?

"I called the UEO last night," she finally said. "I'm getting a lot of red tape from them. The short of it is, they won't let me talk to him." Randy didn't elaborate on this, but Carson had an idea of what she meant. Her relationship with her parents had never been very good, from what he could see. And they didn't strike him as the type of people to be brought closer together by a crisis.

Randy continued, leaning towards Carson across the desk. "If I can't see him as his sister, I want to see him as a reporter. If you can get me on that boat, Carson, you will get a story. I promise you that."

He nodded. An idea was bubbling in the back of his head, but it wasn't ready to be shared yet. "Okay. I'll make some calls. _But_-" he pointed an emphatic finger at Randy, who was about to leap out of her seat. "I want to make sure I get a story out of this. So I'm sending Doug with you. If you can't deliver a story, he will."

"I don't need a babysitter…" Randy started to protest, but stopped at the dangerous look in her boss' eye. Smart enough to know to quit when she was ahead, she held up her hands in acquiescence. "Okay. Okay. Doug's coming with me. But you don't have to worry. You get me on that boat, and you'll get a story."

Carson watched Randy leave his office. Hangover all but forgotten, he slid the forgotten folder containing Randy's proof of identity into a side drawer, locking it.

"Yes," he said after her. "I will."

Chapter Four

Lieutenant Lonnie Henderson stared miserably at her plate. Ten years they'd been gone. Ten long years. And the meatloaf was still terrible. She nibbled at a carrot; the vegetables weren't too bad, at least. She fidgeted a little in the uncomfortable silence at the table. Across the table, Ensign Lucas Wolenczak fiddled with his mashed potatoes, and Lieutenant Tim O'Neill gazed into his coffee cup as if he were reading his fortune.

It had been a strange day. For the first time since their- return? recovery? whatever you called it- the missing crew had been given the opportunity to contact their families. Due to the sheer number of calls, each one had only been allowed a ten-minute connection. When there was ten years of life to catch up on, not to mention the shock of your family suddenly being ten years older, those ten minutes went by like a nanosecond.

Lonnie's mom had been happy to hear from her, of course. But she had obviously been struck by her daughter's youth, and Lonnie in turn had had a hard time adjusting to the amount of grey in her mother's hair. And she seemed so much smaller- could moms get smaller? Her older sister was now her _way_ older sister. And her cute little niece, the one that toddled after her everywhere and called her "Nonnie" the last time she'd gone home on leave, that little niece was in high school and starting to date. So much had happened that, while there was a lot of love on all sides of the conversation, Lonnie had disconnected the call with the unsettling feeling that she'd just conversed with vaguely familiar strangers.

Tim's call hadn't gone any better. It had been worse, in fact. His father, he learned, had died eight years ago. His older brother (two years older? Twelve?), now greying at the temples, had told Tim that talking to Mom wouldn't be a good idea just yet. She had taken Tim's death very hard, and after losing her husband such a short time afterward, she'd had a stroke, leaving her with a very vulnerable constitution. Tim's brother thought it would be best if they broke the news to her more gradually. He hadn't really had any choice but to agree.

Lucas had called his parents to find the number disconnected. He'd tried Nana Holt in Florida, but just got an answerer. He didn't leave a message. What would he say: "Hi Nana, hey Miranda. Guess what? I'm not dead after all!" A little hacking had found his parents' new number. His mother had told him that Nana Holt had died in 2028. When he asked about Miranda, her face had gotten really tight and she shook her head. _Don't bother with Miranda_, she had said. _She has her own life now, and she wants nothing to do with you._

The slam of a tray hitting the table jolted the three out of their separate reveries. 

"What's goin' on here?" Tony Piccolo threw himself into the fourth chair at the table. "God! It looks like a funeral. What's with the long faces?"

Lonnie shook her head vigorously, trying to shake off the gloom she was feeling. She managed an almost entirely heartfelt smile. "I'm fine, Tony. No… I really am," she assured him. "It's just been a long day."

"Yeah, I hear you," he replied. "And that depressing call I made home didn't help any." He glanced around the table once more. "And judging by the expressions here, no one else had such a joyful talk with Mommy either."

Lonnie's eyes dropped back down to her plate. Tim winced a little, taking a long swig of the too-strong coffee. Lucas tossed his fork down onto his plate, heedless of the clatter.

"Well, what do we expect?" the young ensign said with surprising bitterness. Lonnie and Tim looked at Lucas in surprise. He had hardly said a word all through dinner. He continued. "We've been through… We don't even really know what we've been through." He raked a hand through his blond hair, clearly agitated. "But do we get to go home, re-connect with the world? We get a call. A ten-minute call. And that's supposed to put our world, our _lives_, back together. A ten-minute call." His glare settled on Tim as he said this last. The communications officer raised his hands in surrender.

"Hey, not my fault. I'm only following orders."

Lucas sighed and shook his head. "I know, Tim. I'm not blaming you. It's just…" his voice trailed off. He didn't know how to explain what he felt.

" 'Following orders,' " Lonnie repeated softly. "Captain Hudson's orders." She shook her head slowly. In her entire UEO career, she had had only one captain, until now. In a way, taking orders from Captain Bridger had felt like taking orders from her dad; he'd commanded respect, but at the same time she felt as though he genuinely cared for his crew. Since Captain Hudson had taken command, though, things felt very different. He walked the _seaQuest_ with a proprietary air, as if she and her crew had come back after ten years entirely for his benefit. Lonnie had the odd feeling that he cared more about the boat itself than about the crew aboard her.

"Yeah, Captain Hudson," Tony echoed. "What was going on with him today? You guys notice he looked unusually cranky this afternoon?"

"How could you tell the difference?" Tim asked his coffee cup. Lucas heard him and cracked a half-smile in the lieutenant's direction before answering Piccolo.

"I think I know what you're talking about, Tony. He snapped some strange orders my way this afternoon. Plus he wants full diagnostic checks on all automated systems." Tim raised an eyebrow. "I know," Lucas continued, answering the unspoken question. "Everything was checked before we went back in the water. But he wants it again." He shrugged. He's been a genius long enough to know busy work when he saw it. But he wasn't complaining. Mindless tasks would keep him safely occupied while his brain worked to absorb the implications of all that had happened in the past few days. Past ten years. Whatever.

Lonnie nodded in agreement. "You're right, Lucas. He was acting a little strange. Right after he took that call in the ward room."

Three pairs of eyes slid around to Lieutenant O'Neill. He stared back.

"What?"

"Anything you can tell us?" Lonnie asked sweetly.

"No," Tim protested quickly. "Nothing at all. Do you know how much trouble I'd be in if I listened in on the Captain's communications? Much less made them common knowledge over dinner? Nope. Get your gossip somewhere else." He tilted his head back, draining his coffee cup.

"I mean, _really_," he continued, a twinkle present in his dark brown eyes that the others hadn't seen in a few days. Or maybe in ten years. "Do you know what they'd do to me if I told you guys that Secretary General McGath ordered Captain Hudson to route us to California to pick up a couple of civilian reporters? And how the captain fought him tooth and nail, but has to do it because it's a direct order? I'd lose my job so fast it wouldn't even be funny."

Lonnie looked at Lucas. Lucas looked at Tony. Almost instinctively, the four subtly leaned a little closer to each other, towards the center of the table.

"Why are we getting reporters?" Lucas asked.

"They can't expect us to talk about Hyperion, can they?" Tony looked worried. Memories of their time away were still coming back in bits and pieces, mostly in dreams. Chilling, frightening memories of smoke and fear and death.

Tim shrugged. "I don't know," he said, in answer to both questions. "It's all UEO arranged, though. I'm thinking they're going to be taking some kind of statements from us. It's not like we got any major debriefing before we went back out."

"Really." Lonnie drew this word out into at least four syllables. Tim could almost see the wheels turning in her head. This could be dangerous. Off their looks, she maintained an innocent expression. "I'm just saying that we can use this, that's all."

"How?" Tony asked, in a stage whisper that was probably much louder than it needed to be.

"What was it you said, Lucas? Reconnect with the world? These reporters are going to want to spend time with us, you know, the time-travelling freaks. So, I say we let them. Let them interview us all they want."

"That's fine," said Tony. "You hang out with them. Talk to them, be their best friend. Not me. I don't want to talk about this anymore." Tim nodded his agreement, his eyes sliding down to his empty cup, the twinkle all but gone as another scrap of memory came to him.

"No, now wait." Lonnie laid a hand on Tony's arm, which got his immediate attention. "Let me finish. They're going to ask me questions, I'm going to ask them questions." She smiled crookedly. "I can fall back on the wide-eyed, innocent routine pretty easily, you know. I want to know what's been happening, what the UEO hasn't told us. More's changed than just politics, you know. I want to find out as much as I can. And besides-" the twinkle that had been in Tim's eyes had transferred itself to Lonnie's- "You know how much the captain hates this. What was it he told you, Lucas? He never allows civilians on his boat. And now he has to. I'm of half a mind to help these poor reporters out, just because I'm sure Captain Hudson won't make it at all easy for them."

Tim smiled. He liked the way Lonnie's mind worked, a thought that surprised him. He thought back to the time when she was a new recruit. "Wide-eyed" has definitely been a good way to describe her back then. So had "vapid" and "infantile," if he remembered correctly. She had grown a lot over that next year, and the whole Hyperion ordeal had greatly strengthened her character. What she was saying now made sense. While he wasn't sure how much he really wanted to talk about his recent experiences, with the captain raging, the impending visitors could use all the help they could get.

***

Randy felt a chill the moment she stepped on board the _seaQuest_. Intellectually, she knew it was the climate controlled interior of the sub, but emotionally she was remembering her old, familiar dream. Lucas giving her a locket, standing in a submarine, and then gone forever. She shivered. Beside her, Doug laid a hand on her shoulder.

"You okay?" He asked. He'd been filled in on his coworker's identity, as well as her ulterior motives. She nodded.

"I've been so focused on getting here," she said in a low voice, "that I hadn't really thought about what I'd do once I actually got here."

Should she just come out and ask to see Lucas? She'd rejected that thought almost immediately. She had put her career on the line to come here, and she was going to be professional about this. She just wished her chest hadn't tightened up so; it was getting a little hard to breathe. As calmly as she could, she scanned the faces of the crew members she could see. None of them looked like Lucas. She realized then, as a cold feeling hit the pit of her stomach, that she may not recognize him. Ten years older, he'd be thirty now. And the last time he'd seen her, she'd been fourteen. Chances were _he_ wouldn't recognize _her_!

Randy froze, momentarily seized by panic. She wanted to turn around, wanted to run…where? She was on a submarine now, the airlock closed behind her, leaving the coast of California. _Come on, Randy. Breathe!_

"Deep breaths, girl." Doug read her mind. "You can do this," he murmured in her ear. She nodded once, firmly.

"I can do this," she repeated. She slung the strap of her satchel over her shoulder and bent to pick up her other bag. As she did so, her locket on its heavy silver chain swung out from inside the neckline of her denim shirt. It flashed briefly at her under the ambient light, and she took that as a good omen. She was thus momentarily distracted, and missed the approach of the ship's captain. When she straightened up again, she was very surprised to see a familiar face.

"Captain Hudson?" She blurted out. The captain turned from where he had been greeting Doug. She was astonished to see him almost crack a smile.

"You're Randy Holt, aren't you?" She nodded, still too surprised for words. The captain extended a hand, and Randy shook it. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Holt. I've read your work. Very good."

"Thank you sir." He'd read her work? She'd never actually met Oliver Hudson before, but he was very well known, especially in a military town like New Cape Quest. Hunting for the _seaQuest_ had been a well-known obsession of his these past few years, and Randy had been very interested (without appearing to be _too_ interested) when Doug had interviewed the Captain for the magazine a couple years ago.

Captain Hudson had turned back to Doug. "I had no idea we'd be getting home-town coverage," he said. "I guess it should have occurred to me, though, this being a UEO brainchild and all."

"Well, we're doing a feature story for the magazine," Doug answered smoothly. "You know if anyone's to cover this, the UEO would want the locals, as it were. Right, Randy?"

Randy smiled in gratitude at her partner. She really hadn't wanted Doug to join her on this trip, and had been annoyed at Carson's insistence. But now that she was here, her mind was racing too fast for rational thought; it was a relief to let someone else do the talking for her. It might kill her to admit it, but Carson was right. Taking Doug along had been a great idea. She extended her smile to the captain, hoping it looked vaguely professional. "Exactly. I mean, besides the global implications of this whole thing, the _seaQuest _has a kind of local interest for the people of New Cape Quest."

Hudson nodded, satisfied with the answers he'd been given. "This is my XO, Commander Ford," he said, gesturing to a pleasant-looking African-American standing a few feet away. "He's going to give you the official tour. Ensign Piccolo there is going to take your gear to your quarters, and start setting up your equipment." A shorter young man, not quite looking the newcomers in the eyes, had already picked up their two bags, and was reaching for Randy's satchel.

"That's okay," she said. "I'll carry this. You have enough to deal with as it is."

"You sure?" Tony looked up at the young woman in front of him, and surprised himself by dropping most of his frown. That talk with Lonnie the other night hadn't made him any more excited at the prospect of having his brain picked by a bunch of reporters. But this one was cute; he hadn't thought about that. He'd always been a sucker for blondes. Something about her was familiar too. It wasn't anything Tony could quite put his finger on, but for some reason he felt as though he knew her already.

Randy hitched up her satchel a little higher on her shoulder. She quickened her step to catch up to her colleague, who had already started off on the "grand tour" with Commander Ford. _Ford…_Randy rolled that name around in her mind for a few seconds. If memory served, Lucas had talked about someone on the _seaQuest_ with that name. Had he been a commander? She couldn't remember. But this one looked awfully young to be serving as XO after missing for ten years. He didn't look older than, oh, thirty at the most. So he'd have been Lucas' age when they went missing. Couldn't be the same guy, then. She dismissed the thought and fell into step behind the two men.

***

"Hey, Luke."

"Mmm." Lucas didn't look up from his screen. His report was _thisclose_ to being ready, and Hudson wanted it yesterday. He hit a couple more keys before turning to Tony. "What is it?"

"Nothing. Uh, you almost done with that?"

Lucas nodded, turning back to his work. "Just about. I'd be done sooner if I didn't get interrupted."

"Hey, sorry, don't mind me. The Captain just told me to check and see if you were done. So I dropped off those reporters' stuff, and I thought I'd give you a shout, that's all."

The reporters. Lucas had forgotten all about them. "They're here? What are they like?"

"Oh, they're okay. They're from New Cape Quest, which seemed to make the captain happier about the whole deal. The girl's cute, though."

"Girl?" That got Lucas' attention. He raised an eyebrow in Tony's direction. "I thought Tim said they were two guys."

"Yeah, he did." Tony shrugged. "She's using a guy's name. Randy something."

Lucas' face changed expression slightly. A few more keystrokes, and he sent the report to the printer for a hard copy. "I knew a girl I called Randy sometimes," he said quietly. "She hated it." He stared at the blank screen for a few more seconds. He felt better than he had a couple days ago, but what Mom had said about his sister still rankled. Why wouldn't Miranda want to hear from him? They'd always been close. Well, as close as they could be with him on a submarine. They'd kept in touch ever since she'd moved to Florida: a vidlink call every couple of months, the occasional visit when he had leave. Not to mention the two years he'd lived with her and Nana Holt while the new _seaQuest_ was being built. What had happened in those ten years to turn her against him? Was she angry? Did she resent him for being gone so long? He'd called Nana Holt's house a couple more times yesterday, just hoping that maybe she still lived there, but never got an answer. Shaking himself free from his thoughts, he turned his attention back to his roommate.

"So she's cute, huh?"

"Yeah. She's too old for you, though, Luke," Tony hastened to add. "She's more my type, I think."

"Tony, you think all girls are your type."

"Well, they are."

Lucas rolled his eyes. "I bet she's _not_ too old for me. Technically, I am in my late twenties now, you know."

Tony tapped the side of his head. "It's all up here, my boy. You still got some catching up to do. Besides, I still say that she's too old for you. She may even be too old for me. She looks like she's been covering wars or something."

"Why do you say that?"

Tony shrugged again. "Hard to tell. Her eyes looked old, y'know? Like she's seen a lot."

Lucas was intrigued now. Tony was usually the type look at a girl and correctly guess her bra size, not comment on the age of her soul. "I guess I'll just have to see for myself," he replied, gathering the papers off the printer for Captain Hudson.

"You can probably see on the bridge in a few minutes. Commander Ford's giving them the tour, and he's probably saving the bridge for last. I bet that would be a good place to give your report to the captain in, oh, ten minutes or so."

Lucas grinned. "Thanks, Tony. I may do just that."

***

Randy was going to scream. She was going to throttle the very pleasant Commander Ford and demand to see her brother. It took every ounce of willpower and concentration that she had to look as though she was listening attentively to the Commander's narrative as he led them through the corridors of the _seaQuest_. In reality, she was peeking into every room they passed, hoping in a quick glance to see a thirty-year-old who looked like Lucas. Only once did she see a familiar face; the ensign that had taken their bags was talking very animatedly to someone she couldn't see. So she trotted along obediently behind Doug, who was asking very intelligent questions of the commander. Thank goodness; she could quiz him later.

They were headed towards the bridge- she'd retained that much. Maybe Lucas would be there? Where the hell were they hiding him, anyway? _No, calm down. Deep breaths. _One thing on this little tour struck her as weird, though. It could be assumed that the _seaQuest_ had picked up additional crew before going back into the water. But the crew that had been missing was still aboard. Ten years older than the rest, they should be noticeable. Randy had yet to see a crewmember that was on the far side of forty.

The bridge doors opened slowly to admit the three of them.

"Access to the bridge is limited," the commander explained. "Captain Hudson is allowing you to enter today, but for the remainder of your time aboard, we can't allow you past these doors. We're not technically in a state of war, but some emergency situations have already arisen in the short time the _seaQuest_ has been back in the water."

The two civilians nodded obediently. Randy liked Commander Ford. He seemed professional, by the book, but pleasant about it. Again, she wondered if he'd been among the missing crew. Just coming out and asking seemed awfully rude. But at the same time, she _was_ a reporter. She'd have to ask questions at some point.

All thoughts, even those of finding her brother, flew out of her head the moment she and Doug stepped onto the bridge of the _seaQuest_. For a few moments, all she could do was stare. All around them, lights flashed and twinkled. People wearing uniforms and headsets sat behind tremendous consoles, some of them monitoring numerous screens at once. Fingers tapped on keys, consoles chirped in response, and low voices murmured into headsets, blurring together into a steady drone. It reminded her of a dance, almost, the way so many people moved in such harmony. The light on the bridge had a bit of a wavy blue cast, which Randy attributed to the aquatube that snaked through the port side of the bridge. Earlier, when Commander Ford had told them the story of the aquatubes and their function, Randy had to clamp down a nervous giggle when he mentioned Darwin. She remembered Darwin. Most of Lucas' stories of the _seaQuest_ had involved the dolphin in one way or another. Hearing Darwin's name come out of someone else's mouth made this whole thing just a little more real to Randy. She was in Lucas' world. He was here. Somewhere.

Commander Ford motioned to a lanky, bespectacled officer, who removed his headset and walked over to the trio.

"This is Lieutenant O'Neill, our senior communications officer. Once we're back out in open waters, he'll set up a secure channel for you in your quarters, so you'll be able to contact your office without using UEO channels."

"Mostly secure, anyway," the communications officer corrected. "The access is going to be limited, and you probably shouldn't relay any classified information."

Doug shook his head. "We don't plan to. We mostly just need to check in with our editor every so often, and transmit text once we get started." He stepped forward to shake the Lieutenant's hand. "Douglas Conover."

"Tim O'Neill."

Doug shot a glance at Randy, who mentally kicked herself. She'd been looking behind consoles again. "Randy Holt," she said, sliding her hand into Tim's.

"A pleasure to meet you," Tim replied. Or maybe he replied. Randy never really knew, because the moment her hand touched O'Neill's, a very familiar figure bounded onto the bridge, visible over O'Neill's left shoulder. A blond figure. A _teenaged_ figure.

"Captain, I've got the hard copy of that diagnostic test you wanted--" Lucas never finished that sentence. His mouth sagged open, his face turned white. One by one, the papers in his hand fell unnoticed to the floor.

Thinking about his absentee sister had put Lucas in a low mood, so he had decided to take Tony's advice and check out that cute reporter. She had been easy to spot: the only woman on the bridge wearing a denim blouse and khakis instead of a uniform. As he saw her, he wondered for a split second if he had gone insane. If he'd been thinking so much about Miranda that his mind had simply projected her features onto the stranger shaking Tim's hand. She looked just like Miranda. The last time he'd seen her, she'd been a teenager, but his mind instantly recognized that this was how she'd look at twenty-five. The papers began to slip out of his hand when he saw the locket on a silver chain around the woman's neck. Smooth, not engraved, in the shape of a heart.

__

Amnesia, Randy thought wildly, staring at her brother. _They said amnesia. They didn't say he wasn't any older!_ Her brother, her big brother, stood not twenty feet away from her, looking the same as he had when she'd talked to him last, on a vidlink about two months before he'd vanished. Her lips tingled; she knew that the blood was draining from her face. She'd been searching so desperately for him, and now that he was right in front of her, she couldn't move. All she could do was stare.

Tim O'Neill was confused. He was also in pain. The friendly yet professional handshake from Randy Holt had suddenly become a deathgrip, her nails digging into his hand. Her face had gone stark white. Alarmed, he started to ask if she was all right, when he noticed she was staring over his shoulder. He turned to see Lucas, similarly pale, with pages of a report all around his feet. Randy swayed just a little on her feet, as if her knees threatened to give out, and Tim held her hand a little tighter. He moved his other hand to grasp her elbow, holding her steady.

Lucas took a couple tentative steps towards Randy and Tim. "_Miranda?_" Blue eyes wide, she blinked, twin tears dropping to her cheeks. She slowly raised a shaking hand, as if to reach out to her brother.

"…Lucas…" She tried to speak his name, but apparently her voice had stopped working when the paralysis had set in.

__

Of course, thought Tim, looking again from one to the other._ They're related._ Strangely, he felt almost protective of the young woman clutching his hand. Maybe it was the shock that was so evident on her face. Or her tears. Or maybe it was that he couldn't feel his fingers anymore. Tim almost felt as though he were handing her off to Lucas, propelling her forward and only letting go of her hand when Lucas had grasped her other one.

Fingers laced together, each held on so tightly their knuckles turned white. Lucas lifted up the heart-shaped pendant.

"You kept the locket."

"Of course I did." Randy's voice had come back, but her knees were still shaking. "You were dead."

Dropping the locket, he brought his hand up to touch her hair, tracing where it stopped just above her shoulders. "Your hair," he said. "You've cut it. It was longer."

Randy laughed, a high-pitched sound that signified impending hysteria. "Yeah? Well, you're still a kid!" Did this mean he wasn't her big brother anymore? Had he become her little brother? Her mind spun crazily. 

Lucas shook his head, his eyes wild. There were so many questions he wanted to ask her, and he couldn't think of a single one. "Where…where have you been?" he finally asked.

"Florida. I've always been in Florida." Randy's voice was stronger now. "Nana died. Did you know Nana died?" Off his nod, she continued. "She left me her house. I'm there."

"But I called…" The words were hardly out of his mouth when it became clear to Lucas. She hadn't answered in the past couple days because she was on her way here. Of course. "I just can't believe you're here." Lucas gripped her shoulders, as if trying to convince himself she was real. "But Mom. Mom said you--"

Randy shook her head forcefully. "I don't care what Mom said. Don't tell me what Mom said. All I care about is you. You're alive." And then Randy Holt, ever the professional reporter on assignment, threw herself into her brother's arms and dissolved into tears. Lucas wrapped his arms around his sister. The implications of all of this could wait. Brother and sister had found each other, and for now, that was enough.


	2. Default Chapter Title

"So how does this work?" Lucas pushed his hair out of his eyes with one hand, a gesture Randy remembered from their youth. She smiled. Leaning forward, she tugged on a lock of his hair.

"You're telling me this hair is regulation?" she teased. "It's longer than mine." He blushed a little and shrugged.

"No one's come after me with scissors yet, so I guess I'm safe."

Randy smiled again and leaned back against the head of the bunk. She and Doug were installed in the guest quarters, a largish room with two bunks. After the very public reunion between brother and sister on the bridge, Captain Hudson ordered the ensign to escort the civilians to their quarters. It was an order Lucas was only too happy to carry out. The next two hours passed in seconds. Randy shared what felt like her entire life story, from her college days to losing their grandmother to complications from breast cancer. Before leaving home, she'd filled a small photo album with pictures, so her stories had visual aids: her prom, her high school graduation, her and Nana on vacation in California six years ago. Lucas told her things he had never had the time to tell her over the vidlink, and things he's forgotten to mention in the brief shore leave visits. In the midst of this, Lt. O'Neill stopped by, as promised, to help Doug set up the computer and vid equipment. Randy saw him glance her way a couple of times. He looked so concerned that she wanted to reassure him that she wasn't planning on keeling over again. 

Eventually, the stories slowed down. Randy and Lucas sat on her bunk, the book of photographs between them. Doug sat at the cabin's desk, tapping at his keyboard, politely pretending the other side of the room was miles away, instead of just a handful of feet.

Randy's index finger traced the side of the open photo album. She returned her mind to Lucas' question.

"How does _what_ work?"

Lucas gestured to himself, then back to her. "_This_. Us. Are you my big sister now? Or are you still my little sister? Cause technically, you know, I'm still older than you."

Randy shrugged, shaking her head slowly. "I don't know. I'm still trying to figure it out, but it's hard. I still don't understand what happened to you, Lucas. I'd heard the crew had some kind of amnesia, and you couldn't remember where you'd been. No one said anything about you looking the same age as when you disappeared. So what happened?"

Across the cabin, Doug's typing had muted considerably. The room was suddenly very quiet. Lucas glanced from Randy to Doug, and back to Randy again. "What is this?" he asked, suddenly suspicious. "Am I being interviewed now?"

Randy stared blankly at her brother. Was he right? Had she slipped into reporter mode without even thinking about it?

Doug sensed the height in tension almost immediately. He closed his laptop and got to his feet. "You know, Randy, I think I'm going to take a walk. I want to do a little exploring before dinner." Randy nodded vaguely, but her eyes stayed on Lucas. Lucas said nothing. Once the door shut behind him, neither spoke for a few moments. Then Randy took a deep breath. "Lucas, I'm sorry. I never meant for you to feel--"

Lucas held up a hand and interrupted his sister's apology. "No, it's okay. _I'm_ sorry." He'd started to reach his hand out to grasp hers, but instead he leaned away. "This whole thing's just been really weird. On all of us. Thinking about it- or talking about it, for that matter- just makes me jumpy."

Randy nodded. "Would a group setting be better? We'd- Doug and I- talked about interviewing a few people before we really got started. Maybe if we all talked as a group…would that be easier on you all?"

Lucas considered the idea for a few moments, then shrugged. "Could work. I'll talk to Lonnie, maybe Tim too. See if they want to talk after dinner one night." He paused, thinking. When he next spoke, his voice was quieter. Less certain. "So is that your name now?"

"Hmm?" She didn't understand the question.

Lucas waved a hand towards the door, where her colleague had exited a few moments before. "Randy. Your name's really Randy now? Not Miranda?"

She thought about that. "I guess it is. I've been Randy Holt for almost ten years now. No one's called me Miranda since Nana died." She shook her head. "I just don't know. That would feel strange."

Lucas nodded slowly. He gave his sister a small smile. "After all those times that you used to get so upset when I called you that. "

"I know. Irony at its finest." Although she returned his smile, her eyes held remembered sadness. "I didn't have your last name anymore. It was a way to hold onto my brother, even if I was the only one who really knew it." She shook her head again, returning to Lucas' earlier question. "I haven't thought of myself as Miranda in a long time. That would take some getting used to."

"Don't worry," Lucas grinned. "I've been wanting to call you Randy for most of your life. You just wouldn't let me. I'm not complaining."

***

"I don't like this."

No one had to ask Tony what he meant. In the midst of the pleasant, ice-breaking chat, Randy had placed the small recorder on the table. She'd been as unobtrusive as she could, but Tony had noticed it. They all had.

Doug tried to placate Tony's nervousness with a joke. "I know. I don't like it either. That tape recorder of hers is such a relic. I'm surprised it still even works…"

"It is _not_ a relic," Randy automatically replied.

"Yes it is." This was an old argument between the two coworkers, more teasing than serious. "It's ancient. It's almost as old as that music you listen to. I mean-"

Randy cut him off with a loud cough. He got the hint and shut up. "What don't you like, Tony?" she asked, returning to the topic at hand. "You told me before that you were okay with this. With all of us talking together. I know it's hard. It's been hard on all of-" _us_, she almost said, but changed her mind at the last moment- "you. If you'd rather not talk…"

Tony shook his head. "No. It's not that. I told you I'd be a part of this, and I will." He nodded to the tape recorder. "But what if I say something really stupid? Then you've got it, and the next thing I know, the whole world's reading it."

"That won't happen."

"How do I know?"

"Because this is _my_ story. I'm writing it." Randy leaned towards Tony, looking him right in the eyes. "I do things a certain way, and the most important thing to me is that you're represented fairly. If I use your words, anything you say, you'll see it first. Before my editor, before anyone. You'll get to approve of it before anyone else touches it. If I make you sound stupid, I'm screwing us both, and I'm _not _doing my job."

"Passionate about her work, isn't she?" Lonnie murmured to Tim. He nodded, agreeing as much with Randy's statement as Lonnie's question.

"Well, she_ is_ Lucas' sister, after all," he muttered back. Lonnie smiled.

Tony held her gaze for a couple more seconds, then dropped it with an abrupt nod. "Okay."

"Okay." Randy settled back into her chair. "When I talked to Lucas earlier, he told me that you don't have any memory of being…away for ten years. Is that right?"

There were various nods from around the table. Tim rubbed the back of his neck absently. "That's right," he said. "But the thing is, we physically _weren't_ gone for that long. A few days at most, really."

"Really?" Doug was interested now. "How can you tell that?"  


"We all had physicals," Lonnie replied, glancing at Tim, then back to Doug. "Let's just say our bodies didn't age."

"And as for memory," Lucas added. "That's just really shaky."

"So you don't remember where you were? What you were doing? Any of it?" Doug asked. 

Lucas nodded. "There's a little. Here and there." He didn't elaborate.

"I remember some." Tony surprised himself by volunteering this. "But it's foggy, kinda jumbled. It's like…" He leaned his elbows on the table, settling into a good analogy. "You know when you go out, you hit the clubs? One of those nights where you have a _really_ good time, and you have way too much to drink?" Randy was amused to see Doug nod in complete understanding.

"Yeah. So you wake up the next morning, and at first you got nothin'. You have no idea what you did the night before past, say, nine-thirty." Randy nodded, not even trying to hide her smile. _This_ was her brother's roommate? "But then, as the day goes by, stuff comes back to you. Or people remind you. And all of a sudden it's 'Oh yeah, that's right, I was dancing on the bar,' or 'Right! I was doing body shots with that chick.' " Randy's eyes widened. Her social life had never been this colorful. A quick glance around the table, though, told her that she was the only one surprised. Obviously, Tony's social life _was_ this colorful.

"Well, it's a lot like that," he finished. "I'm remembering stuff, but in pieces. Except it's a lot less tequila shots with coeds, and a lot more explosions."

"Explosions?" That last word wiped the smile from Randy's face. "You mean like bombs?"

Tony started to answer, but Tim coughed pointedly.

"That's venturing into classified territory," the lieutenant said. "The Captain didn't want us talking too much about that."

"Oh. Right. Sorry." Feeling chastened, Randy dropped her eyes to her notebook. She hadn't written anything down yet; she'd been so caught up in listening. She glanced at her recorder to make sure the audiotape was still rolling. She'd use the tape to catch up later. _Old relic, my ass…_

"What about at home? What happened at home?" Lonnie asked. Randy furrowed her brow, not understanding the question. "Sorry, that made no sense; I've never been missing for ten years before. What did they do? Did they look for us?"

"Oh, yes." Randy nodded vigorously. "One thing you do have to give the UEO credit for, they handled everything as well as they could. They even set up a private phone line, that family members could call with questions." Randy's voice slowed a little as her thoughts turned inward, drawing on ten years' worth of memory.

"Officially, they looked for...um, remains, for seven years, since that's how long it takes to be declared legally dead. But after the first couple of years, they pretty much gave up. There was nothing to go on: not even a trace of the boat. There were some radical types like Captain Hudson, and some conspiracy theorists who still looked, who still thought the _seaQuest_ would be recovered. But the UEO, and the families of the missing had pretty much resigned themselves that it- and all of you- were just gone. And then the memorial went up after you'd all been gone for seven years. I guess that was the official cut-off point."

"There's a memorial?" Lonnie asked.

"Yep. In New Cape Quest. There's this small park not far from the beach- they built the memorial inside. There was a really nice ceremony, honoring the crew. A lot of the families were there."

" 'A lot'?" Tim asked. "Not all?"

"Well, it's hard to say. No one took attendance. Some family members wanted to talk to the media, and others didn't want their grief in the spotlight. But judging from the turnout, I'd say the majority of the crew was represented." 

"Let me guess," he said dryly. "Mom and Dad had no problem giving interviews." Brother and sister shared a wry smile.

"I think I was the only reporter they _didn't_ want to talk to."

"You were there as a reporter?" Lucas looked surprised.

"Yes. I covered the dedication for the magazine." Lucas didn't look satisfied with this answer, but didn't say anything else.

Doug leaned back in his chair, recognition dawning in his eyes. "So _that's_ why you wanted that assignment so badly." 

"Yeah." She thought for a moment. "I wonder what they're going to do with it now."

"What do you mean?" Lonnie asked.

"The memorial. I mean, it's outdated now. I wonder if they're going to tear it down, or leave it up or what." She laughed a little. "What's the precedent for that? Has there ever been a memorial where everyone on it turned up alive?"

"_We didn't."_ Tim's voice was loud and unusually harsh. Startled, Randy and everyone else looked at him. "We didn't all 'turn up alive.' Those of us that came back were lucky." Suddenly, his hand shot across the table, hitting the STOP button on Randy's recorder. She looked from it back to Tim, but made no move to turn it back on. "Maybe we _weren't_ the lucky ones. Because we're still alive, we're going to eventually remember everything that happened. I'm starting to remember things…I don't know if I _want_ to remember. I remember Miguel pushing me, shoving me out of the way of… I remember standing up and realizing the blood that was all over me was _his_ and not mine." Something in his eyes looked surprised as he related this. _He's just now remembering this,_ Randy realized, and a chill went down her back. Tim drew a shaking breath, trying to calm down. "I remember that, and I'm probably going to remember more, and it will probably be even worse. The dead are the lucky ones. They don't have to remember."

"God." Randy's voice was very small. "Lieutenant, I didn't know. I'm sor-"

Tim leapt to his feet, jerking away from the hand that Randy had reached out to him, cutting off her apology. "They can't destroy the memorial, because we didn't all come back. It needs to stay up. For Miguel, for the others that didn't make it. And for their families." He laughed then, bitterly. "Funny, isn't it? There are people up there who would give anything for that ten-minute call from their loved ones, knowing they're alive and safe. Then there are others who…" Shaking his head, he didn't finish his thought. He just pushed his chair under the table with a slam and walked out.

In the resulting silence, Randy and Doug looked at each other for a long moment. She dropped her eyes down to her hands. "I'm so sorry." She looked up at Lucas, at Lonnie, and then Tony. "I didn't…we didn't know."

"We didn't know that there were casualties," Doug finished for her. "Contact's been so limited with the _seaQuest_ since you got back, it hasn't gotten out to the public that you're not all alive and well."

"Miguel was a friend," Lonnie said simply, quietly. "We all miss him. A lot. But I think it's a little harder for Tim. They served together for a very long time. He knew him the longest."

Randy studied her hands some more. "I'm…it's just that…I'm so sorry," she finally said again, not able to think of anything more adequate to say.

"He's taking all this real hard," Tony said. "Not just Ortiz, but all of it. I mean, none of us are exactly sweetness and light about this whole thing, but he's even moodier than usual."

"He'll be okay," Lonnie added. "I just wouldn't count on getting any quotes from him any time soon."

"Agreed." Randy closed her still-empty notebook. She'd hoped to come up with an angle tonight- something to write an amazing article about. But so far she'd learned that the crew couldn't really account for the missing time. No, scratch that- they actually weren't gone all that time. _That'll_ be easy to write about. Meanwhile, what they did remember was either classified or like a dimly remembered night of drunken debauchery. On top of it all, she'd managed to piss off a very nice lieutenant. _Great start, Randy_. _Maybe you could punch someone tomorrow, and become even more popular around here._

Lonnie changed the subject. "So we really have a memorial?" she asked. "I never even considered something like that. What's it look like? Is it big?"

Randy shrugged. "I guess so. It's like a black marble wall, shaped like this-" she formed her two hands into a gently curving "C" shape. "It has the names of all the crew carved into it."

Lonnie shuddered. "Yikes. I don't know if I'd want to see that. I think it'd be kind of creepy, like seeing your own grave or something."

"Well, in a way, that's what it was. All the families had been dealing with seven years of questions. When all they know is 'lost at sea without any bodies recovered', there are all these conflicting emotions. No one's declared dead yet, so they want to hope, but it's hard to keep hope alive for years on end. More than anything else, they needed closure. They needed a place to mourn."

Lonnie nodded slowly, her eyes troubled. "I'd never really thought about that before. How much everyone must have been worried. Scared. My mom spent all that time thinking I was dead. Looking at a big block of marble with my name on it. She probably even brought flowers, knowing her. Did people bring flowers?" Randy nodded. "Yeah. I'm sure Mom brought flowers. She's that type." Lonnie wiped away the tears forming in the corners of her eyes. "No wonder she seemed so weird when I talked to her. How often do you get a vidlink call from someone whose name's on a memorial? I'd be freaked too."

Randy leaned across the table and placed her hand on Lonnie's. "It's been hard on everyone." Lonnie squeezed her hand in response.

"Well," said Doug in the silence that followed. "I think we've had enough fun for one night, what do you think?" Lonnie responded with a short, surprised laugh.

"If you call _this_ fun," she replied.

"I don't," Tony spoke up. He pushed back his chair decidedly. "I need to hit the gym."

Lonnie smiled. "That actually sounds like a great idea. I'm in." Within seconds the two were gone, bidding a pleasant goodnight to Randy, Lucas and Doug. Doug excused himself at the same time, taking Randy's "old relic" of a tape recorder back to the room to begin transcription. Lucas and Randy headed towards the moon pool; she had yet to meet the famous Darwin. Lucas had been quiet for the past few minutes. Randy took this to be a companionable silence, until--

"You're not my sister anymore, are you?" His voice was low, quiet, and flat. 

Randy stopped walking. Lucas stopped too. For a long moment, they just stared at each other. "_What?_" She was so astonished at his question that she didn't know what to say.

Lucas started walking again, quickly, as if he were trying to get away from her. She had to struggle to keep up. "You've been a reporter this whole time," he said. "You're talking about the families and how 'they' feel. '_They_ need closure.' '_They_ need to mourn.' You're completely detached from this, aren't you? Listening to you talk tonight, it sounds like none of this happened to you at all."

"Are you _insane_?" Randy grabbed Lucas' arm, dragging him to a halt. "Do you know what that felt like? Being there, interviewing people, being this totally impartial reporter, all the time looking at this huge black…_thing_ that told me my brother was dead and never coming back? Everyone there, including Mom and Dad, got to wail and cry and gnash their teeth. _I _had to hold it all in till I got home." Blue eyes bored into blue eyes, each set filled with their own pain. "I missed you every minute of every day. I'd wake up on your birthday and think 'he'd be 27 today.' And I'd wonder at that: the luxury of having an older brother who was alive." Her voice cracked on that last word. Lucas' face lost some of that angry, set look. "But I couldn't let it show, Lucas. I was one of the reporters covering the dedication of the memorial because it was the only way I could go. I sure as hell couldn't ask for the day off, tell my boss who I really was." She dropped his arm and leaned against the opposite wall of the corridor.

"But why?" Lucas' voice had an almost pleading quality to it. "Why not tell him who you were? Why not use your real name?"

Randy shook her head, her eyes almost frightened. "Why? I had no reason to take my name back. You were gone. Mom and Dad wanted nothing to do with me. To become a Wolenczak again, after all that time, would just be capitalizing on your death. And our parents were doing enough of that for everyone. I couldn't do it, too. Besides," she continued. "I made Randy Holt into a strong person who can live on her own, without parents or a brother. Miranda Wolenczak was this scared little girl who lost her whole family."

"Not anymore."

Randy considered that. "I know. But, it's just been a long, long time. Miranda's probably in here somewhere, but I don't know. I'm not even sure who Miranda_ is. _Does that make any sense?"

Lucas thought for a moment, then nodded slowly. "I think so. It's just…in my head, I wasn't gone that long. It's hard for me to remember that you were home for ten years, living your life."

Together, they turned around and started back to Lucas' cabin. Neither of them said a word about it, but they'd decided Darwin could wait until the next day.

"So are we okay?" Randy asked after a couple more minutes of silence. Lucas put an arm around her shoulder and, for the second time in her life, kissed the top of her head. The gesture made her feel ten years old all over again, and she had to blink back more tears.

"Yes," she felt rather than heard him say into her hair. She squeezed his arm as he let her go.

"Good," she said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I have a lieutenant to apologize to."

*****

Randy stood for a few moments outside Tim's cabin. Finally, she raised one hand and tapped on his door. She heard some movement inside, but no voice responded to her knock. She tried again. This time, she heard his voice, low and tired-sounding.

"Come."

She gently pushed the door open. Tim was sitting in front of his computer. It wasn't on; he was staring at the empty screen. Slowly, he turned his head to look at her. His eyes were a little red, but his face was impassive; he expressed neither pleasure nor displeasure at seeing her.

"Hi," Randy said. "I wanted to say-"

"You recording again?" He cut off the beginning of her apology, speaking over her, his voice short.

"No." She spread her arms, both in defeat and offering. "Wanna search me?" Tim shook his head once, the ends of his mouth barely curling upwards to acknowledge her joke. She took that as a good sign. "May I come in?" He hesitated a moment, then nodded. She stepped all the way into the small cabin, shutting the door behind her. She clasped her hands in front of her for a moment, then dropped them to her sides. Finally she stuck them in her pockets and leaned against the closed door. She took a deep breath and started again.

"Lieutenant, I wanted to apologize. I never meant to say anything to hurt you. I don't want to upset you, or anyone else. There's a lot to all of this that I don't know, and none of us above know, either. I'm trying to ask the right questions, talk about the right things, I really am. I mean, I know how you feel right now, and I'm trying to--"

"_Right_." Tim's voice slashed through hers again, stopping her in her tracks. He raised his eyes to hers for the first time, dark brown and very, very cold. "You know how I feel. Let me tell you something. You _don't_ know how I feel. _Nobody_ knows how I feel. _I_ barely know how I feel. I fought a war- I think- somewhere. I don't really know where. I watched friends _die_, good friends, and right in front of my eyes. Then I suddenly wake up. I'm home, I'm alive, and time moved on without me. I'm ten years younger than I should be.

"And now you're here," he continued. "You and your partner, with your recorders and your questions. You want to pick my brain, when I don't even know everything that's in it yet. You ask questions, you don't have to answer them. And _you_ know how _I_ feel?" He shook his head.

Randy stood and listened until he was done, her head bowed. When she spoke, she found her voice was very thick, and she had to clear her throat and start again.

"May I tell _you_ something?" She asked softly. Without waiting for his assent, she continued. "There was this girl. Her parents… well, her parents didn't really care about her. But she had her grandmother, who loved her very much, and she had her older brother. She and her brother were pretty close, considering he spent a lot of time on a submarine, out at sea. Then one day, when the girl was fourteen, she learned that his submarine had disappeared. Just vanished. The whole crew, including her brother, was dead. For the first few weeks, she just sat in her room. She couldn't talk to anybody, not even her grandmother, she missed him so much. Then, after a while, her friends were able to persuade her to go out. Nana talked her into it- said that Lucas wouldn't want her to waste away and die just because he was gone."

Now that the memories had taken a firm hold, Randy dropped the pretense of telling someone else's story. "So I went out one day. Shopping, movies, girl stuff. And all of a sudden, this guy walked up to me and asked me how I was doing. I said I was fine, thank you, just being polite. But then he started asking more questions. Had I been close to my brother? Did I miss him? Did it bother me that they hadn't recovered his body? I just stood there in the middle of the mall, staring at this guy. I couldn't say anything. He'd come out of nowhere. Somehow, my friends got me out of there and took me home. A couple weeks later, there's this magazine in a drugstore with this cover story called '_seaQuest_ Families Move On,' or something like that. And there, on page 46, is a photo of me. Shopping bags in my hand, laughing for probably the first time in at least a month, looking like a dumb-blonde teenager hanging out at the mall. The caption said 'Miranda Wolenczak is doing "fine." ' " 

She laughed then, a short, sharp sound. "That was the first and last 'interview' I ever gave. A couple weeks after that, Nana pulled me out of school, changed my name, and Miranda Wolenczak was gone forever."

Randy realized she was shaking. She'd never shared this much of her life with anyone before, and she had no idea why she was sharing it all with Lt. O'Neill. He'd been friendly enough before, but she'd obviously become one of his least favorite people this evening. He had his own pain, which was massive, to deal with. Why should he care about hers? She fully expected him to sneer at her story and tell her to get lost. But when she finally raised her eyes, she was surprised. He looked at her steadily and, while not quite friendly, not nearly as coldly as he had earlier.

"So what I meant," she said. "Is that I _do _know how it feels. I've been asked stupid, insensitive questions too. I know what it's like to have my grief exploited. So, please believe me, it's the last thing I want to do to you. To any of you."

Tim nodded. "I understand," he said softly. He stood and offered her his hand. "Truce?"

She smiled hesitantly and took his hand in hers. "Truce." They shook on it. "And I'm really sorry about Miguel," she added. "I didn't know."

Tim dropped his eyes to the floor. "Thanks," was all he said in reply. He looked up at her again, his expression a little different. "So are you okay?"

"Considering my head hasn't stopped spinning for the past week or so?"

Tim looked thoughtful. "This has been weird for you, too."

"You could say that." _And it would be a huge understatement._ "But I'm fine."

"Good." For the first time that evening, or maybe even since she'd met him, Tim smiled. It was a small smile, to be sure; only one side of his mouth really curved up. But it was infinitely better than the haunted expression Randy had grown accustomed to. "As flattered as I am when women swoon in front of me, I'd hate to think you're going to continue to faint all over the place."

Surprised, Randy let out a short burst of laughter. "God! I was so embarrassed." She smiled ruefully at the memory. "I never did thank you though. For the support."

"Literally." Tim chuckled. "And don't be embarrassed. I'm just glad I was there to help."

"Me too."

She turned to go, but Tim called her back.

"All that stuff I just told you," he said. "The fighting… that's actually the classified stuff we weren't supposed to go into."

Randy patted her pockets, illustrating that they were empty. "I said I wasn't recording, remember? And no paper, either." She shrugged, mock-helplessly. "If I don't record it or write it down, there's no way I'll remember enough to write about it."

Tim understood. "Thanks," he said again.

Randy turned again to the door, and again turned back into the room.

"I'm not always a reporter," she said. "Sometimes I just listen." She then said good night, and left feeling that maybe Tim didn't hate her after all.

Tim sat down in front of his computer again, switching it on this time. He felt better. He didn't feel great, but… he felt better. He tapped a few keys, bringing his computer online. He smiled, remembering that girl he chatted with a few nights ago. She'd been very kind, and had made him feel more relaxed than he'd felt in a very long time. Maybe she was online tonight…?


End file.
